Official: Wayward Blimp's Remains To Be Removed Over Weekend

MUNCY, Pa. (AP) - The remaining section of a wayward Army blimp that broke loose in Maryland and came to rest in the Pennsylvania countryside will be removed over the weekend.

U.S. Army Captain Matthew Villa says the sensitive radar in the blimp's hull will be removed Friday. He says workers will spend the rest of the day making a clearing where they can put the hull after it's taken out of the trees.

It's been stuck since Wednesday, when it escaped from Aberdeen Proving Ground and floated into Pennsylvania.

As it floated away, aviation officials feared it would endanger air traffic, and two F-16s were scrambled from a National Guard base in New Jersey to track it. But there was never any intention of shooting it down, said Navy Capt. Scott Miller, a spokesman for the nation's air defense command.

Villa says helicopters will pull the hull out of the trees in rural Muncy, on Saturday and military trucks will haul it away.

The radar will head back Aberdeen Proving Ground, but he says the blimp will go "wherever investigators want it to go."

Fitted with sensitive defense technology, the radar-equipped blimp climbed to about 16,000 feet, authorities said. It covered approximately 150 miles over about 3½ hours.

The craft is known as a Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and can be used to detect hostile missiles and aircraft. Such blimps have been used extensively in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to provide radar surveillance around U.S. bases and other sensitive sites.

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